Impact of El Niño events and climate regime shift on living resources in the western North Pacific

Abstract

Features of El Niño events and their biological impacts in the western North Pacific are reviewed, focusing on interactions between ENSO and the East Asian monsoon. Impacts of El Niño on the climate in the Far East become evident as ‘cool summers and warm winters’. Effects of climate regime shift on ENSO activities, western boundary currents and upper-ocean stratification, as well as their biological consequences are summarized. These have been: 1. In the western equatorial Pacific, an eastward extension of the warm pool associated with El Niño events induces an eastward shift of main fishing grounds of skip jack and big eye tunas. 2. The surface salinity front in the North Equatorial Current region retreats southward, associated with El Niño events. This leads to a southward shift of the spawning ground of Japanese eel, which is responsible for a reduction in the transport of the larval eels to the Kuroshio and Japanese coastal region, causing poor recruitment. 3. Intensification of winter cooling and vertical mixing associated with La Niña (El Niño) events in the northern subtropical region of the western (central) North Pacific reduces surface chlorophyll concentration levels and larval feeding condition for both Japanese sardines and the autumn cohort of Neon squid during winter–early spring. The semi-decadal scale calm winter that occurred during the early 1970s triggered the first sharp increase of sardine stock around Japan. 4. A remarkable weakening of southward intrusion of the Oyashio off the east coast of Japan during 1988–91, resulted in a decrease in chlorophyll concentrations and mesozooplankton biomass in late spring–early summer of the Kuroshio-Oyashio transition region. Changes occurred in the dominant species of small pelagic fish, through successive recruitment failures of Japanese sardine.